Woman in Real Life

You know darn well that any time we are travelling anywhere at all, I am googling for vegan food at our destination. Until this past weekend, it had been two decades since I'd been to London, Ontario. I got my master's degree in journalism at Western University over 20 years ago. Holy cow!

I always liked London. We walked pretty much everywhere and it was lovely to walk along the Thames River (usually to get vegetarian wraps at Sammy's Souvlaki). London is actually where my husband and I first became vegetarians. With our own apartment came the responsibility of preparing our own food. We decided then and there that we would never prepare something that had once had a face. It's different when somebody else prepares meat for you. The first time I pulled the little bag of weird stuff (giblets?) from a whole chicken I knew that eating animals wasn't for me. Fortunately my husband agreed, and we have been vegetarians ever since.

I recently posted about our stay at the 1000 Islands/Ivy Lea KOA. A large part of the reason that we selected that particular KOA was its proximity to the boat tours of the 1000 Islands. We had never toured the area before and we really wanted to go. The islands are located in southeastern Ontario as well as northern New York State. (The property above is partly in Canada and partly in the US.) Waters that were once patrolled by pirates and bootleggers are now travelled by vacationing families, tourists and cottagers.

The Thousand Islands are a cluster of 1,864 islands in the Saint Lawrence River where it emerges from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. The islands stretch downstream from Kingston, Ontario for about 80 km and range in size from 100 km2 to smaller islands occupied by a single residence or only birds and trees.

A while back, we took the kids and their friends to the Ontario Science Centre to visit MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition. The Science Centre is always lots of fun for the kids and us parents. Upon arrival, the excitement builds as we hit the long escalators that lead to the exhibition level.

MythBusters is based on the Discovery Channel’s show MythBusters. Co-hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman test wild hypotheses in entertaining experiments. The Ontario Science Centre exhibition features real remnants from experiments that were created on the show. Best of all, there are interactive learning opportunities so that the kids (and adults) can do what they like best - try experiments out for themselves!

Generally we try to go away on one longer road trip per summer - often it has been to Nova Scotia, once it was to Cape Cod and, last year, it was to New York City. This year we decided that our main vacation would take place right here in Ontario. There are many beautiful spots in this province and it makes sense now and then to put the money into accommodations and save on travel expenses.

We rented a cottage for a week on Lower Buckhorn Lake with my husband's cousin and her family. Just a couple of hours away, it was a pleasant drive to the cottage, mainly along rural roads. We didn't exactly pack light. In fact, we pretty much stuffed the van to the gills. I decided to buy all of our groceries at home and pack them in coolers and boxes, because I'm sort of picky about which products I like and you never know what you'll find in smaller town grocery stores. We left the dogs at home with a dog sitter so we didn't have to pack any of their stuff. But we managed to fill up every crevice anyhow.

If you are in the Greater Toronto Area for the Pan Am & Parapan Am Games, be sure to make time to visit Headwaters, a "2,534-square-kilometre quilt of genuine Ontario country," comprised of the rural communities of Caledon, Dufferin County, Erin, Mono and Shelburne.

In the spring, I went on a press tour of this idyllic area, which I had previously known little about. We sometimes visit relatives in the Town of Orangeville and we once hiked over the striking Cheltenham Badlands, but the tour gave me a new appreciation for just how beautiful this area is - a pastoral paradise just an hour from Toronto.

This past week has been event-filled. Of course, there was Mother's Day on Sunday. One of my favourite days - I usually get to spend the morning curled up in bed with a pile of books and magazines. Unfortunately this year I woke up the night before Mother's Day feeling sick. I ended up staying in bed a little longer than I planned on Sunday. My husband slept in a bit too, so my usual breakfast in bed turned into a late brunch in bed.

We visited my husband's cousin and her family on Saturday. They took us to the nearby Cheltenham Badlands, a small example of badlands formation in Caledon, Ontario. For those of you who don't know what badlands are (I confess I didn't) here it is straight from Wikipedia:

While we were visiting my parents at the cottage this weekend, we took a day trip to the town of Port Dover. We used to go there regularly when I was a kid, but I had forgotten how much fun it is. Located on the shores of Lake Erie, it's a beach town right here in Ontario (a province not generally known for its beaches).

Of course, the key attraction in Port Dover is the public beach, but there are also lots of fun shops (where you can shop in your bathing suit) and roadside french fry and ice cream stands. My dad doesn't get out much anymore, but the kids managed to persuade him to come along, especially since it was almost my birthday. Mom and Dad took us out to a restaurant to celebrate.

Because I am including an obnoxious amount of photos here, I'm not going to say a whole lot. I'll let Port Dover speak for itself.

We got our Christmas tree a couple of weeks ago, and I am just getting around to sharing the photos. I didn't want to skip it, because I love the tree farm we go to so much. It's Horton's Home Farm in Stouffville, Ontario. What I love about it is the restored log cabin on site.

Insta-Friday time! Time to share simple cell phone photos from our week.

Emphasis on the simple this time. I thought that when I got a new cell phone, I would take hundreds of exciting pictures. Turns out, we don't do a lot of photo-worthy stuff on a regular week. We hang out, tidy the house, take the kids to dance and basketball, eat food...not that I'm complaining. It's a nice life.

I take pictures of food, mostly. I made granola bars from my first-ever homemade granola, above. They tasted good, but nobody else ate them and eventually I threw half the pan away.